A universal remote control (URC) device transmits operational signals to control one or more electronic consumer devices. Examples of electronic consumer devices include televisions, video cassette recorders, set-top boxes, audio home theatre systems, and CD/DVD players. Many users of electronic consumer devices such as televisions use URC devices to frequently change channels. Often consumers change channels to avoid watching uninteresting content, such as television advertisements or promotional clips, which periodically interrupt the presentation of interesting content. In the context of television viewing, this behavior is popularly referred to as “channel surfing”.
In a common scenario of channel surfing, a viewer is engaged in a particular program for an extended period of time, for instance fifteen to twenty minutes. The programming will then be interrupted by advertising or promotional content. In response, the viewer will “surf” through a sequence of channels until the viewer finds something to watch that is more interesting than the commercial or promotional clips.
The viewer typically “surfs” with the aid of a URC either by explicitly entering particular channel numbers or by incrementally changing the channel using a channel up/down button. After a period of “surfing” the user will very often want to return to the initial program, estimating that by this time the advertisements are finished and the initial interesting program is being presented once again.
To return to the initial program using a typical URC the viewer must both recall and explicitly enter the channel associated with the initial program or repeatedly increment the channel number until the initial program appears. Both of these approaches complicate the user experience. First, the user may forget the channel number of the initial program. Second, entering the channel number on a small keypad often requires the user to focus attention to the URC itself to make the correct sequence of key presses. Using a channel up/down button, a user may have to increment through many channels to return to the original program. Both of these approaches cause viewer frustration and loss of viewing time.
In an attempt to avoid such frustration and loss of viewing time, a viewer may explicitly program an association between a key and a particular channel such that upon a subsequent pressing of the key the URC transmits a “macro” of operational signals to the television such that the television is tuned to the preprogrammed particular channel. A problem with this approach is that the programming sequence is typically a time consuming sequence of keystrokes that a user should memorize. In addition, any change in a user's preferred channel requires the association to be manually reprogrammed. As a result of these problems many viewers choose not to utilize the macro key functionality of a URC.